Satan’s Slave – Director Norman J Warren (1976)

Before I start I would first like to say I’m a huge fan of British Horror films from the 1970’s  so I may be a little biased when I say that I loved this film. When you look elsewhere on the web you may see some pretty un-savoury reviews for this movie. It’s easy to say that people don’t get it, I don’t think that’s the case I just think a lot of people find the slow pace of some of these films hard to bear when they’re used to watching shit like Saw. This film tells the tale of 19 year old Catherine Yorke played by the incredibly gorgeous and mesmerising Candace Glendenning (The Flesh & Blood Show, Tower of Evil) on her way to visit her Uncle Alexander played by the extremely charismatic Michael Gough (Horror Hospital, Batman) and cousin Stephen the very sinister looking Martin Potter (Craze, Goodbye Gemini). On the driveway to her Uncle’s mansion the car crashes and her mother is killed instantly, Catherine manages to escape from the car but before she can help her father the car explodes and kills him too. Understandably suffering from shock she agrees to stay at her uncle’s house for a few days to get some rest. Obviously things aren’t quite what they seem and her family history turns out to be a little unusual to say the least, despite this she forms quite a close relationship with her cousin Stephen which doesn’t go down too well with his live in lover and Housemaid Frances. The films includes plenty of Black Magic, great sacrificial scenes, a reasonable helping of gratuitous nudity (apparently a horror film wouldn’t get financed without this in the 70’s) and some pretty spectacular Special Effects, look out for the pin in the eye scene! All this to say this was Norman J Warren’s first Horror film before he went on to make Prey, Terror & Inseminoid.

Stewart Kinloch